At a mini-meeting in Birmingham yesterday, I learned a variation on AYs classic butterfly from Sarah Mowbray. She in turn learned it from a Dutch lady at the last BOS convention in York. I was very taken with the model.

You should be familiar with the model, but does anyone know who came up with this variation?

1. Take a waterbomb base,  fold two opposite single corners to the right angled corner.
2. Turn over, then fold the right angled corner back up, just past the raw edge. The lower flaps will curve slightly to allow this – don’t flatten them!!
3. Fold the tip of the triangle underneath
4. Make a mountain fold along the centre.
5. Turn over for the completed model.

The model taught also included reversing the tips of the four waterbomb base flaps, creating colour-changed, blunter wingtips, but I prefer the simpler version.  In the past, I’ve always made this to AY’s instructions, which involve flattening the paper at step 2. This subtle change makes the model beautifully and elegantly 3D. Now AY may well have been aware of this, (I doubt he’d have admitted it even if he had!) but I wasn’t and I love it!

At the meeting I was delighted to meet Dave Venables & Mick Guy once again and the third member of the unholy trinity of 70s origami-Brummies also made a shock appearance, one Ray Bolt.  My friend Thea, who had known him in the 80s (when he retired from origami) sat next to him yet didn’t recognise him until introduced. She claimed it was his white hair & ‘tache that fooled her 😉